The old Empire Stadium in Vancouver.

Here’s some interesting news about Vancouver’s expansion bid that most may not know of yet. They will have to play in two different stadiums in their first year in Major League Soccer in 2011. The Vancouver Sun is reporting today that due to the renovations to BC Place the expansion Whitecaps (or whatever they will be called) will also play an unknown number of home games at a temporary facility on the old Empire Stadium.

“It means a bit of an inconvenience for a few games, but then there’s a pretty good trade off at the end,” said Lenarduzzi, carekeeper of Greg Kerfoot and Co.’s $35-million investment. “The most important thing was getting the certainty of the retractable roof and everything else that comes with the improvements.”

“They [MLS] were originally concerned, like we all were, but once the financing for the upgrades got done they were more than okay,” Lenarduzzi said. “

Very interesting that we didn’t hear about this until now but I suppose it is better late than never. A lot of clubs go through temporary sites before they get into their home stadiums in this league so we shouldn’t be too concerned over this news. I’d imagine the league may even be able to set the schedule up in a way that sees them on the road early on so they only have to play a game or two at the most at this temporary venue.

According to the reports, the roof should still be finished in time for the start of the 2011 season for the Whitecaps.

The Globe and Mail has learned that both B.C. Lions owner David Braley and Vancouver Canucks chairman Francesco Aquilini have expressed interest in partnering with the province.

In theory, either man could help finance the project in exchange for the right to develop provincially owned land – some of the last available real estate in downtown Vancouver – around the stadium. It is also possible that a private investor could demand control over operations of the facility, which is currently held by PavCo, a Crown corporation.

Earlier this season there was reports that the funding had gone dry for this project. Hearing that there could be true hope for this project really helps the Vancouver MLS bid out. Had the roof now been part of the stadium plan there could have been a chance at the league removing the franchise from the city (though honestly I think that was a long shot at happening).

As of today the league should be pretty happy to hear that their two 2011 clubs are in good standing for their stadium situations that have been ongoing since their bids were announced earlier this year.

I wanted to get into some MVP race discussion. I mention earlier that I felt Colorado’s Omar Cummings deserves to be in the discussion, well I have a few other names that are right up there with Cummings.

- Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy): Aside from his 10 goals and five assists, Donovan is the cog that keeps the Galaxy going. When he is on his game the Galaxy are a tough team to beat. You will see that when he is gone with the National team in the coming weeks, LA just doesn’t look the same without him.

- Conor Casey (Colorado Rapids): Current leader in goals in the league with 11 (and one assist). Casey will probably get more mentions than his teammate Cummings due to the number of goals. One thing is certain though, Casey has stepped his game up in a big way this season and the Rapids are finding out just how good he can be.

- Fredy Montero (Seattle Sounders FC): Some may say that there are better candidates on the Sounders’ roster but Montero gets my nod. His 10 goals and six assists is more than enough for me to place him here. We know just how dangerous he can be and when he is on it is something else to see.

- Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Columbus Crew): Before he went out with an injury GBS was the clear favorite in this race but his injury made it worth watching again. He still is up there in the top of the league leaders in goals with 10 and isn’t doing too bad with three assists on the year. If he returns to even half the form we saw out of him early on this season he still has a great shot at another MVP award.

Others to mention:

Shalrie Joseph (New England): Without him the Revs would be dead in the water.

Brad Davis (Houston): While Brian Ching scores all the goals it is Davis who does the dirty work that sets him up.

Cuauhtemoc Blanco (Chicago): While I’m not a fan of his work he is second in the league in assists.

Dwayne De Rosario (Toronto): The Reds wouldn’t even be near playoff contention this year if it weren’t for DeRo.

Got any other names that I am missing?

Shea Upset In Dallas?

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Gotta love seeing an angry comment or two from a young player that really needs PT. Believe me folks you want to see Brek Shea do well because he has the potential to be something special. Thing is he is stuck in a system in Dallas that doesn’t utilize young talent properly. He knows it and now he is sounding off about it. My bet he will be on the first plane to Europe this winter after the U-20 World Cup wraps up next month in Egypt.

Union Front Office Discusses Stadium

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Philly execs discuss the on-going stadium project in Chester. Good to see some solid progress on the new stadium for next year’s expansion club.

DC’s “Next Trophy” Photo:

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I do wish more teams knew how to market themselves better like DC and Seattle. Right now the two are at a pissing war over next week’s US Open Cup final at RFK Stadium. DC posted a photo of this year’s trophy on their blog today and Seattle fans were quick to discuss it.

Portland Timbers Prepare For MLS Jump

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I’ll be honest, I don’t follow the USL first division nearly the way I should. I know there is quality soccer there but I just don’t go for it nearly as much as I do MLS. Probably my lack of FSC has something to do with it. Anyways, its great seeing Portland getting more pup due to their play on the field and what is going on off the field. This year’s Timbers are a pretty impressive bunch going on a 23-game unbeaten run in the USL. Yeah only one loss this year for the Timbers and that was way back at the first game of the year.

Vancouver Expansion Looking Darker?

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Let’s just say the reports up in Vancouver are going from bad to worse as we speak. Apparently the roof at BC Place is a big part of their expansion bid with the league. Honestly, the league shouldn’t go nutty over the lack of retractable roof if the city can’t pay for it. Sure its nice to have open air stadiums like the article says but it isn’t the end of the word is it?

We’ve been talking long and hard about Portland’s troubles with their stadium but now it looks like Vancouver could be joining the mix? While both cities were awarded expansion bids it went with certain stadium situations that the league agreed on. Now Portland seems to have taken care of their issues but now Vancouver could be headed down a tough road of stadium fun.

Reports coming out of Canada suggest the retractable roof plan for BC Place, the home of the Vancouver expansion club, are either on hold or off the table all together.

Construction on the downtown Vancouver stadium was expected to start soon after it serves as host for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and was part of a larger overhaul of the facility that was expected to be finished by the summer of 2011.

But a source told Global News on Tuesday that the roof replacement may no longer be a key government priority and it may be forced to pull its funding in the current economic climate. It means the project could face some serious delays or be cancelled altogether, the report said.

Delays to the upgrade could also jeopardize the city’s hope of landing a Major League Soccer franchise. The Vancouver Whitecaps was awarded the league’s second Canadian franchise in March based on a bid that included a refurbished stadium.

“That won’t be a great scenario for us,” Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi said of the possible delays or cancellations. “The fact that it was going to be an open-air stadium was something that was very appealing to the MLS.”

Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi was on “It’s called Football” (btw, you need to check that show out if you haven’t yet) yesterday and said that he did not expect any problems with the roof at BC Place.

You have to wonder what really is going on surrounding this deal in Vancouver and if it could really hurt the expansion plans there for MLS.

We saw things finally go the right way for MLS in Portland so we can only hope it ends up that way in Vancouver. I’m sure more stories of this will be coming out before long so just stay tuned!

“There are a lot of things we need to make decisions on,” he said. “The Whitecaps name has a lot of equity. There may be people out there that think it may need to be something other than that.”

Still, gaining entry to North America’s top soccer league marks a personal victory for Lenarduzzi, who played for the Whitecaps when they won the North American Soccer League Championship in 1979.

“I honestly didn’t think that there would be an opportunity to recapture what we had back then,” he said.

More than likely this won’t matter much. Seattle faced a similar issue going into their name picking a while back. If enough fans are in love with the Whitecaps name then you can believe they will remain the Whitecaps once they join MLS in a couple years.

Lenarduzzi sounds like a very passionate man too. He also stated he believes the club will do better than both Canadian rival Toronto FC and Cascadia Cup rival Seattle Sounders FC. He like the idea of Vancouver being able to out sell both cities in terms of season tickets.

“There is no doubt in my mind we are a better soccer market than those two,” he said. “I am excited about the prospect.”

It’s certainly possible in a soccer crazy market. I like the lofty goals by Lendaruzzi. Maybe they will come true.

Vancouver has beat out remaining finalists Portland, St. Louis and Ottawa for one of the two 2011 expansion clubs. Portland and St. Louis are the favorites for the remaining bid, with various reports identifying Portland as the favorite to join Vancouver (more on that in a bit thanks to some emails from Portland).

You can follow today’s expansion announcement here.

Excited for Vancouver? Or just happy to see this fun run come to an end here?

Just as we all expected once Miami dropped out of the running, Vancouver will be getting an expansion club in Major League Soccer with an announcement tomorrow morning. The CBC is reporting that the Whitecaps will be holding a press conference tomorrow with commissioner Don Garber.

The Vancouver Whitecaps are expected to hold a media conference on Wednesday to announce that the club has been selected for one of two MLS expansion franchises scheduled to begin play in 2011.

The move to the MLS has been anticipated for some time. Last week, Vancouver radio station TEAM 1040 reported that MLS officials would be in Vancouver this week to officially award the expansion team.

Vancouver is expected to keep their current nickname the Whitecaps once they are in MLS. So in a way you could make the case that the Whitecaps are just getting a promotion to MLS from the USL first division. Finally promotion in MLS…sorry no one will be relegated to USL-1 from MLS in 2011 though.

The story still remains about who will be the 18th club and join the Whitecaps in 2011. Portland seems like the most likely candidate at this moment but the league has pushed back any announcement on their front for the time being. Some are already reporting that Portland is in, which isn’t a huge shocker while others remain hopeful it is St. Louis.

Also, some are also saying that Portland could be announced Thursday morning too.

With the 2009 MLS season about to kick off this week and everything that’s happened the week gone by, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the future regarding our league.

Last week we saw drama from the Pacific northwest to the Gateway City. The fact that the vote in Portland on Wednesday would not only dictate how far their own bid would go, it would also influence the Ottawa bid and especially the St. Louis bid. However, even before all this 11th hour drama began, what looks like the one certain lock has been the quiet, yet steady bid the whole time since all original bids were announced back in the fall.

At first we all thought Montreal would be in instantly including yours truly. Montreal already have a state of the art stadium that can easily expanded to meet the needs of MLS. The Impact already have a rivalry with Toronto FC and it would be enhanced in league play. Of course not forgetting fan support. It looked like potential ownership had deep enough pockets but maybe not deep enough as we thought.

Arthur Blank and his Atlanta bid dropping out was not a complete surprise as he has apparently lost some money in this downturn and it was always an underdog at best. Atlanta should be kept in mind for the future though, but at the moment other cities are better fits currently then them.

Then the biggest surprise of them all thus far, was Miami dropping out of the race. Not only having a billionaire potential owner from Bolivia, but with the help of arguably the biggest club side in the world joining the bid was something MLS simply could not ignore not only because of what the name FC Barcelona stands for globally, but because the club already have a marketing partnership with SUM for the next five years.

I for one was never a fan of the Miami bid for a number of reasons and the only reason why Claure and company lasted as long as they did was because of the Spanish giants involvement. In the future MLS should try the Miami market again depending on the economic climate and measuring it up with other bids that may come into play. Currently there are just more deserving cities right now.

So with two near enough certainties dropping out early the field, it then became an open race for the most part.

Vancouver has been the one bid that nobody heard a peep from and at the moment, that is good news. Everything has seemed to fall in place in BC: deep pockets, stadium deal done and fan support. Of course stranger things have happened such as two early favorites dropping out so don’t count them in until it’s officially announced, but it does look an almost certainty.

If Vancouver is in, that leaves a closer race for the last spot. Portland got what they needed Wednesday, however, they were not counting on Anheuser-Busch joining Albert Pujols and Jeff Cooper the same day. Who would have thought competition for expansion franchises in MLS would get this competitive five years ago?

It doesn’t take a Ivy league graduate to figure out that Portland would be an excellent fit for MLS. They have the owner with deep pockets, extremely strong fan support with an instant local rivalry with the Sounders and Whitecaps (if Vancouver gets in) and now have officially a stadium deal in place. Although it seems that $15m must come up from somewhere which looks like the final hurdle that needs to be cleared.

St. Louis must be thinking what else have we got to do to impress Don Garber after losing the 2010 expansion race to Philadelphia and possibly the 2011 race. The question that remains is not so much a potential ownership group with deep pockets now because of the events that took place last week, the question is are they too late? One wonders why Jeff Cooper could not get Anheuser-Busch on board much earlier. However, it certainly gives MLS much to think about by extending the decision to March 31st.

The other Canadian bid in the capital did raise a number of eyebrows when the bids were announced. Classed as an underdog just as Atlanta was is a credit to the Ottawa bid that they have lasted this long. However, just as the Atlanta and Miami bids before them, they should be considered for future expansion should the league choose to expand further. Right now, there are other bids that just fit better currently plus the stadium deal hasn’t been officially put in place yet.

Jeff Cooper said recently in a interview with Gol TV he thinks all original seven bids were good enough and in an ideal environment MLS would like all seven bids to join the league. It’s hard to disagree with that statement. Unfortunately, putting aside all the paperwork and obstacles that need to be cleared, the truth is the talent pool is not big enough to accommodate seven new clubs all at once in North America. Include the current salary cap in the equation then it would be more difficult to bring in more foreign players. However, with roster size changes, number of foreign players per team, the cap will increase and therefore teams will have a little bit more room to be flexible in bringing in new talent. Should MLS continue to expand by another two teams in 2012 or 2013, the choices should be obvious ones.

MLS should do whatever it takes to get the Montreal Impact in the league simply because it makes so much sense in every way and there is too much potential there to ignore. The other should go to either Portland or St. Louis whichever is the one that loses in the current race.

At the moment Portland is favorite and all signs point to them winning, but just as Miami and Montreal showed us nothing is guaranteed.